Remembrance
by Skaldish
Summary: An indulgent romp revolving around the idea of a more mature Dawn Summers. Dawn dressed as Sarah Williams for Halloween. At least, that's what she remembers. The Monks really should have been more careful with those fake memories. BtVSxLabyrinth. Season 5 AU.
1. PROLOGUE & CHAPTER 1: once upon a dream

**Title:** Remembrance  
**Author:** Skaldic  
**Disclaimer:** Joss Whedon and Jim Henson own all.  
**Rating:** PG13 / R  
**Universe:** Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Labyrinth  
**Spoilers:** BtVS, Season 1-10; Season 5 AU. Jim Henson's Labyrinth.  
**Warnings:** Dark themes. Gore. Violence. Underage Situations.

_I knew I loved you before I met you.  
__I think I dreamed you into life_.  
— Savage Garden

**PROLOGUE**

She was born standing up. Aphrodite rising from the sea foam. Athena bursting from Zeus's forehead in full armor with a war cry on her lips. She was all this and more, and less. A woman-child born of magic with Armageddon in her veins, and yet so fragile, so incredibly finite, because she was only human. It would have been laughable if it wasn't so infuriating. Of course _they_ would take something so beautifully, terrifyingly wild and bind it. Diminish it. It had happened time and again. Christianity rolled roughshod over the Celts, the Scots, the Normans, even the Romans. They stamped out what they could and assimilated whatever lingered.

He lingered. But only because of her. Only because of one small, insignificant detail.

A memory. Less than that: a memory of a wish that never was.

But it was enough. The memory spun out, light glinting off a delicate spider-web of possibilities, and with it so did he.

_Pan-dimensional energy matrix_, would write the scholar, historian, father, _wizard_.

_The Key_, would say the half-human, owner, devil woman, _Beast_.

_Thing_, would think the girl who was not quite a girl but altogether a _goddess_.

All right, all wrong, but none understanding just what they were faced with. _He_ understood. The memory of a wish had breathed life into a crumbling kingdom of lost and forgotten things. It had breathed life into _him_. It had given him form. More than that, it had given him a _name_ and names were very powerful things.

Like her, he had existed since the beginning and yet had only been born in a moment.

Jareth, the King of the Goblins, Spinner of Dreams and Nightmares, Shaper of Time, older than all, but new, so terribly new. He could count his life in epochs, in millennia, in the distance between guttering stars, but his life was tied to hers, an infancy that ticked by in baby-fresh days that totaled in _months_.

Her, his Sarah, but only by a trick of magic; a girl who loved books who dressed as a girl who had triumphed over them.

It was only a memory, but for her it was real, and like the Velveteen Rabbit, reality came from love, from belief, and the girl _was_ loved and she _did _believe. In the memory, Janus had been called, stirred from sleep, called by a name he had not heard since his chosen people had walked the earth: Chaos (because he was of the first world). He had been called and besought to make a new beginning when the fabric between worlds was thinnest. He had been called and he had agreed.

And for one Halloween night, Sarah Williams had walked the streets of Sunnydale, a steely glitter in her bright eyes and a defiant tilt to her chin.

_You have no power over me._

A memory, intricately constructed and carefully placed by ecclesiastic hands.

Dawn breathed, her sister's red sweater in her hand, her birth scream a childish protest, meshing with her new protector's: "Mom!"

Jareth breathed, a crystal sphere in his hand, his birth scream an amazed laugh as his Labyrinth spread out before him, writhing and growing and _existing_.

Her a mortal girl and he something else entirely, but both with certain powers.

For the first time in his very long, very short life, Jareth had to wonder at the unfairness of it all.

* * *

**CHAPTER 1  
**_once upon a dream_

The owl winged low. Silver-white feathers cut through pale streams of moonlight and inky pockets of shadow as he swept through the sky. The world was quiet and still, the flutter of his wings a soft whisper as memory and magic solidified and carried him onward. The air was thick with it, crackling. A storm was coming.

The wind joined the owl's flight, breaking the stillness of the evening. It pushed and pulled at him with insistent hands and he dutifully followed.

The way was familiar, well-traveled. It was strange; though the owl had never flown this path before, he had flown it countless times: a fabricated memory spinning more, a domino effect of altered reality. When he finally alighted onto the branch of a wide, up-stretching white poplar tree, there were old score marks from his talons. The magic was crisp and vibrant, lovely in the way of all newborn things.

Feathers ruffling, the owl turned his attention toward the house in front of him. White with sky blue trim, it was an ordinary house in an ordinary neighborhood; at least, that was how it appeared and appearances were of utmost importance in Sunnydale. From the cookie-cutter suburban trappings, one could almost be made to believe that nothing exciting ever happened to the family who lived in 1630 Revello Drive. The lawn was neat and well kept, carefully tended hedges bordered the porch. Only the blooming rosebushes in the back garden gave testament to a mother's individual fancy. Everything was clean and picturesque and forgettable.

Not entirely unlike a certain home in New England. Smaller and newer, the Summers home wasn't the Williams home, but there were similarities.

"It's not fair!"

A fondly remembered and oft repeated refrain, but not from who one might expect.

The front door slammed open. Down the porch steps stomped a blonde young woman, her pinched expression clouded with pique. This was Buffy, the magic said, the elder sister. A silly, irritating girl who personified the adage about books and covers. Black owl eyes followed her sudden departure with fading interest. Where she was going and why was hardly important; he hadn't come for _her_.

In the blonde's unhappy wake stood a frowning brunette. She was young; dreamers often were. Her hair hung in a long, straight sheet of shining chestnut and her limbs were gangly and coltish. That, too, was similar and yet completely different. This girl, so like Sarah but not, was the youngest Summers daughter, Dawn. Her pale blue eyes stared after her sister, betraying nothing save a certain weariness, a touch of resignation. After a moment, she sighed and shut the front door, locking it.

Inside the house, a tense conversation started and abruptly ended. The growing wind snatched the words away, carrying them off into the night. The owl tilted his head in curiosity as the girl's trudging footsteps took her upstairs. Leaping from his perch, he swooped in and landed on the shingles outside of her bedroom window.

Memories tumbled forward like overeager puppies and the fictional heroine was set aside and replaced by something far more substantial. Dawn Summers had always believed. Before Slayers and demons and the knowledge that the things hiding in the darkness hunted her, she had found solace in fairytales and _believed_. That hadn't stopped when she had learned that the world was older than she knew, but it had changed. Now, every storybook made her pause and wonder: _Are you real?_ Now, she wondered and she wanted and she needed, but she rarely ever _wished_.

Wishing opened doors and you never knew who would walk through.

Dawn had made her last wish when she was eleven. It didn't matter if it wasn't technically _her_ wish; the memory existed and, now, so did the magic. It breathed over the world and changed everyone it touched, everything. It changed Dawn, too.

Sarah's adventure had been a coming of age tale; it had been a journey to maturity and consideration; and the memory of it had left Dawn a quieter, more thoughtful girl. It had left her older and wiser. Eleven to fifteen in an evening, but looking for all the world like nothing happened. An interesting burden to bear, but still a burden.

As a consolation, a small, red leather-bound playbook sat on her bookshelf and, at times, she would pull it out to read. At times, a wish would sit on the tip of her tongue, wicked and tempting. But Dawn had learned well about the power of wishes and she understood the risk of careless words. And so the playbook would be returned to the shelf and Dawn would put away her childish things.

She wasn't as dreamy and discontent as Sarah.

_Such a pity._

* * *

Inside her room, Dawn had thrown herself across her bed and punched her pillow. Her face was scrunched in anger and she glared at the clock on her bedside table. It read: 8:00 PM. "I'm old enough to _be_ a babysitter," she muttered bitterly to herself and it carried the air of an on-going complaint. "I don't _need_ Buffy to watch me." Sighing deeply, Dawn rolled over onto her back and turned her glare up toward the ceiling. She kicked at her bedding. "Ugh! It's not fai—"As quickly as the words started, they stopped, and Dawn scrubbed a hand over her face.

"But that's the way it is," she said firmly, sitting up and sliding her feet to the floor. It'd been that way since that Halloween.

She pushed back her hair. Three years.

It was hard to believe. Nobody ever really thought about what Ethan's spell had done to them. Yes, Buffy had aced French and could embroider a mean sampler, and Xander knew a lot more than he let on about soldiering, but they didn't _think_ about it. Dawn's own experiences had been summed up with a joke about tragic 1980s fashion and glittery Tina Turner hair. Never mind that she remembered being older. Never mind that she remembered having a baby brother. Never mind that she remembered a whole 'nother _life_. Never mind, never mind, never mind.

Damn, she missed being the oldest.

Casting a disgruntled stare to her window, Dawn debated. She debated and then she decided.

On quick feet, jacket in hand, she snuck into her sister's room and grabbed a stake, a tiny bottle of holy water, and a cross which quickly went around her neck. She was tempted to take the tacky silver cross Angel had given Buffy, just out of spite, but it wasn't worth the fight it would cause. Armed and feeling mildly dangerous, Dawn slipped on her jacket and headed toward Buffy's window. Her own window led down to the trellis, but it also left her in full view of the living room and came with the risk of getting caught. Buffy's had a great climbing tree.

Outside, Dawn grew pensive. What had started out as a nice, clear night was quickly becoming a blustery one. Distantly, she could see dark storm clouds gathering on the horizon. The air tasted like rain. So much for going out. Lame. She supposed she could go visit her friend Melinda. If she hurried she might not even get rained on. It was a small rebellion, but she didn't have the energy for anything bigger than a token effort. She would sit her mom down tomorrow and talk out this whole babysitter brouhaha; if Buffy didn't want her tagging along, then she just wouldn't.

Like she wanted to watch Buffy and Riley suck face anyway.

Plan in place, Dawn slid Buffy's window shut and crouched, slowly picking her way across the roof toward the tall, gnarled tree that stood beside the house. A flicker of white in her peripheral vision had her snapping around and losing traction, a small, muted shriek in her throat. She dug the soles of her shoes into the rough shingles and caught herself. At least she had, before she saw exactly what it was that had surprised her: a large, pale barn owl. It blinked and fluffed its feathers.

Her first instinct was to scramble away from it. Her first instinct was a moron.

Panic washed through her as she slid backward, hands clawing for purchase, but only hitting empty air. She was on the wrong side of the house to land on the hedge, she realized with a dim, skittering sort of terror. Either this was going to hurt a lot or it wouldn't hurt at all because she was about to break her neck and _die_.

A strong, gloved hand caught her by the wrist and brought her fall to a jerking halt.

Dawn could only stare dumbfounded at the man it was attached to. Only that wasn't exactly right, was it? Male, of course, masculine certainly, but so very much _not_ at all a man. Suddenly, she wondered if she might be better off hitting the ground. Because the guy, the wrist grabby guy? Was the frickin' _Goblin King_.

And he didn't look impressed with her in the slightest. "Do you _ever_ look before you leap?"

Her hands slapped closed around his forearm and clung. Pathetic maybe, but Dawn didn't particularly care; when it came to unexpected near death experiences, she checked her pride at the door. After all, it was a long way down and the only thing to cushion her fall was a hard, unforgiving strip of concrete driveway.

"And ruin the surprise?" she tossed back. "Where would be the fun in that?"

His expression soured and his lips thinned. "Where, indeed."

And then he let go.

Eyes flaring wide, panicked hands slipping frantic over the slick red leather of his coat sleeve, Dawn sucked in a breath to scream and— immediately had it driven out of her as she landed in a pile of fresh cut grass and leaves. Blinking dully up at the night sky, a crinkly brown oak leaf stuck to her forehead, Dawn took a moment to enjoy the fact that she wasn't actually dead. Then she shoved herself up, peeled the leaf off her face, and cast a peevish look around for the Goblin King.

She found him sitting sprawled and indolent in one of the carriage-style seats on the carousel, feet propped up on the front and arms stretched across the back. Not too far away from them stood an empty park bench, shining with late night dew. From the pile where he'd so gallantly deposited her, Dawn could just see a very familiar swing set. They were in the park where she'd had her tenth birthday party.

"Having fun yet?" he drawled, not looking at her.

Dawn glared at him and almost decided to stay where she was out of sheer, bratty contrariness. Finally, the dampness seeping into her favorite pair of jeans made her decision for her and she climbed to her feet. Stepping out of the pile of grass and leaves, Dawn shook her white tennis shoes clean and brushed off her clothes. As she tromped over to the carousel, she picked grass out of her hair.

"You," she said, with feeling, "are a jerk."

His eyelids slit open and he stared at her with an amused predator satisfaction. It was a look she'd often seen on Spike's face right after he'd said something horrible. Buffy usually socked Spike in the nose for it. Dawn just narrowed her eyes.

"Displeased to see me, _Sarah_?"

The name reached inside her and tugged in ways she didn't like. Dawn crossed her arms and climbed up the steps to the carousel. "I'm not her," she said, shoving him over as she sat down next to him in the fanciful gilt carriage.

"No, you aren't," he agreed.

He turned slightly to fill the left corner of the carriage, regarding her with frank interest, and Dawn stared back.

He looked different, she noted with some surprise. Where the movie had obviously been makeup and glitter and occasionally ill-fitting costumes, this was real. _He_ was real. The strange, upswept double-tick of his dark eyebrows looked like part of him now rather than a fashion choice, and his pale blond hair hung around his head in feathery wisps. Still an allover rock star mess, but fine and soft-looking in a way that Dawn knew her sister would kill for. As though offering her a better look, he tilted his head and his white skin glinted faintly in the dim illumination from the light posts. His eyes shone bright and catlike.

She looked away.

"Do I pass inspection?"

She _leaned_ away. Maybe she should have stayed put. "You look different."

"And you _are_ different," he returned. He sounded pleased. Dawn glanced back at him when she felt him lift a lock of her hair. His lips curled up at the corners as he wound the lock around a gloved fingertip. "Tell me, _Dawn_..." He drew out her name like it was something warm and exotic, something meant to be savored. Her flat, irritable look only made his smile widen. "Tell me," he repeated, softer, and there was a little more sincerity clinging to the edges, "have you missed us?"

Dawn almost answered, then she paused. She squinted at him. "Is this one of those funny double-meaning things where I end up losing three hours because _petty_?"

He released her hair. "If you recall, I have no power over you."

"So this is, what, a friendly visit?"

"That depends."

"On what?"

"If we're friends."

That brought Dawn up short. Were they? She fidgeted, tugging at her jacket cuffs and straightening them. "I'm not her. I never wished anybody away."

"But you remember it," he said, "and you miss him."

"And _you're_ a stalker."

He said nothing in reply, seemingly content to watch her from his lazy vantage point. They slipped into silence, but it wasn't uncomfortable or heavy, it just was.

"This should be weird," Dawn finally said. She cast her eyes upward toward the sky. Lightning crawled across it in bright, branching fissures of white. Faraway thunder rumbled. "Are the others real, too? Hoggle, Ludo, Sir Didymus?"

He sighed and moved, his black leather boots lowering as he sat up properly. Still, he watched her, and Dawn had to wonder if she was as new to him as he was to her. "So that's why you never called them. I thought, perhaps, you had forgotten."

Guilt curdled in her stomach and she told herself it was stupid. She couldn't have known. "It was a movie."

"Belief can make a great many things real, Dawn."

Her eyes flicked over to his face following its sharp aquiline edges and suspicion itched at her. Even she knew that belief and implication filled in the gaps when it came to magic. _Do you believe in fairies? Say quick that you believe. If you believe, clap your hands!_ Sometimes simply wanting something strong enough made it happen. An absolutely terrifying thought considering where she lived.

"So Ethan's spell made you real?" It seemed reasonable enough.

Instead of answering, he plucked a crystal from the air and set it spinning along his fingers. As he did, the carousel lit up in a twinkling kaleidoscope of color and lurched forward. Startled at the sudden jolt, Dawn grabbed onto his arm, which had his strange, unsettling eyes pressing down on her. She quickly let go.

He glanced off as though nothing had happened. "This _should_ be weird," he said, both echoing and agreeing with her.

"I walked with you once upon a dream?" she asked.

Instead of catching the reference and smiling, he gave a small nod and changed the subject by offering her the crystal that he'd been restlessly rolling from hand to hand. It glittered, almost innocuous as it sat perfectly still on his outstretched fingertips.

Dawn stared at it dubiously, then she stared at _him_ dubiously.

"I've brought you a gift." The words slithered into her ears, familiar and yet _new_. "Do you want it?"

She did. You'd think she'd have learned. "Thanks, but I'll pass."

The crystal rolled onto his palm and he closed his fingers around it. When he opened them, the crystal was gone, but in its place sat a dainty silver ring. "Then I'll just return this, shall I?" Smiling thinly, he turned his hand and let the ring fall.

Dawn caught it on reflex. Upon inspection, she wanted to drop it, or throw it back at him. It was the ring that she'd stolen from Ethan's. She hadn't_meant_ to steal it, exactly, but between the excitement over Buffy's free dress and trying to convince Willow to buy a _real_ costume, she'd forgotten that she had it in her hand. She'd planned to return it after Halloween, but by the time everything was over, she'd lost track of it.

In the yellow half-light, the garnet setting shone a deep, dark scarlet.

Unsettled, Dawn moved to hand it back, but when she looked up, the Goblin King was gone.

* * *

**Author's Note:**  
(1) The bit about Janus and Chaos is from _Ovid: Fasti_, translated by A.S. Kline.  
(2) "Do you believe in fairies? Say quick that you believe. If you believe, clap your hands!" is, of course, from Peter Pan.  
(3) Lots and lots of symbolism in this. Can you spot it?


	2. CHAPTER 2: an invisible touch

.

**CHAPTER 2  
**_an invisible touch_

Hers was a life built of books and written in ink. A fanciful thought, but she wasn't a fanciful girl, not anymore. That didn't make it any less true, however. Standing in the middle of her bedroom, a pinched frown of concentration on her face, Dawn stared down at the journals she'd spread out over her bed. There were two piles. One was her life prior to Halloween '97 and the rest chronicled her life afterward. Before and after Ethan's spell.

It was jarring, the differences between the two. In the space of a single evening, her handwriting had gone from childishly precise block print to the rounded cursive swirls of a young woman. If her family and the others had ever seen these, they might have understood, but Dawn guarded her inner thoughts the way Sarah Williams had guarded her room and the possessions therein: with all the single-minded greed and ferocity of a watchful dragon defending its hoard. These things were _hers_. It was an avarice that ran straight to the bone.

And somehow the Goblin King knew what was in them.

Just thinking about it made Dawn want to throw things and cry, to stomp her feet and hit that shrill, glass-cracking note that even she hated. It tore at her. These journals were hers and they were private. He'd had absolutely no right to read them. How _dare_ he?

"_But you remember it,"_ the Goblin King had said, "_and you miss him."_

The night before, she had accused him of being a stalker, but Dawn had only really understood the implication of his words after she'd finally returned home, wrung the rain out of her hair, and took a moment to just breathe. Those weren't things he could have learned by watching at windows. They weren't even safe assumptions. She never talked about Toby. Not ever. She rarely even thought his name. It was the same with the Goblin King.

Names held power and she refused to give Ethan's spell any more over her.

But the Goblin King had hit the nail on the head; she did remember and Toby's loss, however fabricated, was a wound that never quite healed.

_Give me the child._

She had given up her dreams for him and he wasn't even real.

Dawn rubbed her face and gave her sinking mood a swift kick in the ass. _Sarah_ had given up her dreams for Toby. _Sarah_. Dawn was just stuck dealing with the leftovers. Shoving her nascent pity party aside, she sighed and looked down at the journals in her post-Halloween pile. They weren't just everyday diary entries, they were stories and poems, songs and sketches; _these_ were her dreams and they weren't lost.

Steadied, Dawn picked up the oldest of the journals and flipped through it, skimming its wide ruled, ink-filled pages. In those first few days after Halloween, she had tried to write down everything about Sarah and her life, everything she could remember, half-terrified that it would all fade away in the light of day and leave her like she was before: insignificant, young, ignorant. Now, Dawn knew it had been Sarah's urgency feeding the feeling, but that didn't make it any less valid. Sarah had learned so much on her trip through the Labyrinth and Dawn had been lucky enough to benefit from her experiences. She had been selfish once, too, and fortunate enough to be sheltered, and extremely jealous of her sister.

Shades of Sarah's mother, Linda Williams.

Sarah had only ever seen the glamor of her mother's successful acting career, blind to the sacrifices, ignorant of the _price_ her mother had paid, even as she stood surrounded by the wreckage of her broken family. Dawn had lost a father rather than a mother, but the feeling was the same, and being the youngest, she had watched her sister and had only ever seen what their mom turned a blind eye to, the privileges and the perks of being the Slayer. She had been too young and too protected to understand what being the Slayer really meant. Whatever perks there were, they were outweighed by the risks and losses — the price.

It had shaken Dawn to realize that Buffy was just trying to give her what being the Chosen One had taken from her.

Normalcy, protection, and the security of an uninterrupted night's sleep.

In own her way, Dawn had been just as spoiled as Sarah. Of course, her being eleven, she felt she'd had more of a right to be, but that was then and this was now. She was almost as old as Sarah had been when she'd run the Labyrinth. It was a strange thing, looking fourteen but feeling closer to her sister's age. Dawn couldn't say she liked it much, especially since everyone she knew treated her like she was still in elementary school, rather than having just started high school. Her mom was starting to come around, though, even if Buffy wasn't. It was a start.

Closing the journal, Dawn hugged it to her chest and tapped her fingers against its cover as she looked around her bedroom. It had become her sanctuary after Halloween, the only place where she could be completely and wholly herself. A sliver of Sarah Williams, the girl who hid in her room to escape the gray banality of real life, only Dawn wasn't hiding, she was marshaling her forces and plotting her next move.

"Queen Dawn," she mocked; "Lady of Summer, ruler of Behdrume and the sunny land of Dale." Snorting, Dawn turned and left her room, journal in hand. _Marshaling_. Unlike Sarah, she didn't have a vanity mirror for her theatrics. She would have to improvise.

"Dawn!"

At least, she would if everyone left her alone for five seconds.

"Be there in a minute, Mom!" she called down the hall as she headed toward the bathroom.

Once inside, she locked the door and stuffed a towel in the small gap between the door and the floor — sounds or smells, both would be muffled. She really hoped this worked. Tossing her journal onto the counter, she climbed up to sit next to it. There really wasn't much room and the medicine cabinet mirror was tiny, so she ended up half-perched in the sink, squinting in annoyance at her reflection. The grumpy little girl in the mirror squinted back.

Sometimes Dawn wondered if this was what it felt like to be a vampire. You know, excluding the lack of conscience, thirst for blood, and general craptastic fashion sense. Sticking out her tongue at the eerily young face in the mirror, Dawn settled in and reached for her journal.

Well, it was now or never. She cleared her throat.

"Hoggle, Ludo, Sir Didymus..." She crossed her fingers. _Please work_. "I need you."

* * *

The story was fairly straightforward: the King of the Goblins had fallen in love with the girl and he had given her certain powers. The reality of it, unfortunately, was not so orderly a thing. He had catered to her girlish notions in the beginning, only to find that after everything was said and done, Sarah's self-indulgent little narration had been a foreshadowing of sorts, a hellish warning. No one ever expected their wishes to come true, after all. No one ever expected it because, deep down, behind the everyday masks and respectable pretenses, they knew that if their dreams could come true, then so too could their nightmares.

It was a subconscious fear, one that kept dreams innocent and wishes hypothetical.

For a creature born of belief, relegated to little more than whispered myth when that belief wavered, Jareth had known that the girl, that infuriating woman-child, was a rare treasure, a _precious_ thing. Not only had she believed in his story, she had believed in him.

He may have been the villain of the piece, but unlike so many times before, with so many mortals before, Sarah Williams had added something unprecedented to Jareth's role that no one else ever had. She had added depth, and with that depth came reluctant... _humanity_.

She was a sudden breath of fresh air, something new and vibrant in a world of endlessly drab, unimaginative human reality. She was interesting, Jareth had told himself when she stubbornly lucked her way into an oubliette. However, as she chased her baby brother up and down the room of stairways he had created for her, Jareth knew that he had been lying to himself, trying to rationalize his growing preoccupation with the girl.

He had watched her recite from her little red book for weeks on end, silently formulating a plan.

Sarah had craved an adventure and Jareth had needed her belief. So he'd blown the dust off his story and carefully lifted it from those well-loved, dog-eared pages, spinning his magic to create and embellish. It shouldn't have been all that surprising, how it ended. Jareth had lost himself playing Sarah's interpretation of him, her worthy opponent, and she had defied him at every turn. Sarah had him stretching his powers thin as he tried to live up to her nigh-impossible expectations, only for her to look up at him, the awe and fear in her cruel green eyes demanding more from him, always more. They were well matched, eerily so.

He had offered her everything and she had cast it aside with a look and a sentence.

How could he _not_ fall in love with her?

And that was the story, the memory, the thing that felt real but _wasn't_.

Jareth's role had been left purposely ambiguous: terrible, manipulative villain or misguided romantic hero? Dawn's reading of it was where the true depth lay. She had given him motivation and pathos. At eleven, her expectations of him had been even higher than those of dear, spoiled little Sarah. Eleven-year-old Dawn Summers had already survived her first brush with darkness and the idea of an immortal fae magician failed to impress. No, his exacting, young benefactress had wanted something else; and so, _else_ he became.

"_Hoggle, Ludo, Sir Didymus... I need you."_

In the throne room of his castle, sitting comfortably in the large, empty window that overlooked his Labyrinth, Jareth listened to Dawn's familiar voice sail through the air and stretch across his dusty kingdom of forgotten things. Her very first summons.

In the distance, he felt three heads perk and turn toward the North.

Jareth laughed, tossing and catching a crystal. He did _so_ love when a plan came together.

* * *

Dawn stared at her reflection, the grumpy little girl in the mirror becoming even grumpier the longer she sat with her feet in the sink. Minutes ticked by. Maybe she hadn't said it right? Saying the _right_ words was important. The Goblin King had said...

She sighed and scratched her fingers through her hair, shoving it out of her face. He hadn't actually _told_ her that the others were real, had he? Not outright, not definitively. He had heavily implied that they were real and that wasn't nearly the same thing as saying so. But if the Goblin King was real, why wouldn't the others be, too? Lots of reasons, her mind supplied as she climbed down from the bathroom counter. And if they were real, would they even remember or want anything to do with her? What if they wanted the real Sarah Williams, not a cheap holiday knock off? God, that was a depressing thought.

Back on her feet, Dawn dug into her pants pocket and pulled out the ring the Goblin King had given back to her. The ring she'd stolen from Ethan's; Sarah's ring, the one given to her by her mother, and the one she'd used to pay the Wiseman — _Sometimes the way forward is the way back._ Silver and red, it sat glinting in the palm of her hand. It felt important, vital in a way that worried her, reminding her of a certain drugged peach. Beware Goblin Kings bearing gifts. Dawn almost felt bad for distrusting him. He hadn't done anything, not to her. In fact, he'd gone out of his way to save her life. He'd done it in the most obnoxious way possible, and only after causing the situation to begin with, but the fact remained: he _had_ done it. At the very least, she owed him a thank-you.

Dawn bit her bottom lip, still staring at the ring. "But are we friends?" she wondered. "And if we are, are we the kind that trust each other?" The Goblin King had brought it up before, but he'd left the answer to her. Were they friends? Did she want them to be?

The ring shone. It sparkled. She wanted to put it on.

Instead, Dawn shoved it back in her pocket.

"Maybe," she decided. _Maybe_ they were friends, but until she knew for sure, she would be cautious. He was different, real, and there wasn't a ratings board to keep things PG and kid-friendly. The Goblin King didn't scare her, _per se_, but he did worry her just a little.

He reminded her of _Spike_, and that could either be a good thing or it could be very, very bad.

"Dawn! Buffy's here!" Her mom's voice echoed down the hall from the staircase.

"Coming!" she sent back.

Casting one last dissatisfied look at her reflection, Dawn scooped up her journal and pulled the towel out from under the door, tossing it in the hamper on her way out. She could hear Buffy's voice carrying from downstairs, that irritating "Why me?" whine that she had picked up recently, as though the world — and Dawn in particular — was conspiring against her.

And she was supposed to be the oldest.

Rolling her eyes, Dawn headed back to her room and quickly straightened up. The journals piled on her bed went back back onto the bookshelf where they belonged, no need to make anyone curious, and the journal she had been reading went into her backpack along with several books and her battered copy of _The Labyrinth_ playbook. She needed information and that mean research. It wasn't a plan, more a plan to _have_ a plan, but it would do.

Backpack hitched on her shoulder, she trudged downstairs. The Magic Box awaited.

* * *

Dawn didn't think Mr. Giles wanted to like her. A strange thing to think about someone she'd known since she was ten, but there was always this flickering frown of confused exasperation on his face when she tried to talk to him, very similar to the one he wore when Xander made a joke he didn't understand, before he would look unpleasantly surprised. Like now, for instance. The frown had come and gone and left behind an expression of startled mystification. He peered down at her, his green eyes shining behind his glasses.

If this didn't happen every time she spoke to him, Dawn might have felt a little insulted. She wasn't Buffy; she _liked_ school. She was the Summers daughter who played chess _for fun_.

She arched her eyebrow, chin jutting, and Mr. Giles blinked.

"You—" He paused, throwing a harried look around the Magic Box, probably for Buffy, and Dawn felt her heart sink. The glasses came off next for a quick cleaning. Nope, this wasn't turning out well. "Dawn, I don't know if... well, that is to say, this really isn't a good—"

"I _know_ you have copies," she cut him off, squaring her stance. She needed those books.

Back straightening, Mr. Giles narrowed his eyes. Damn, it looked like he'd finally found his footing. Telling teenagers no, Buffy had broken him in years ago. "Yes, I do," he agreed, snappy, "but as they're in the original German, I'm afraid they won't be much use to you."

Yeah, forget might, she _definitely_ felt insulted.

For a long moment, Dawn just looked at him, kind of amazed under how appalled she was. Did he even understand how patronizing he sounded? "_Ich spreche ein bisschen Deutsch_," she told him, her stare bleeding into a glare. "And I can read it just fine." Sarah's German had been good enough to stumble through the Brothers Grimm. Hers was better.

Now it was Mr. Giles's turn to stare and Dawn's lips quirked in mean satisfaction. What? Just because she wasn't lucky enough to benefit from a fancy Watcher education, she couldn't know stuff? She cocked her hip, hand firmly on it. "Believe me, I am _fully_ aware that they're in the original German. That's kinda why I wanna read them."

"Be that as it may," he rallied, sliding his glasses back on, "those texts are exceptionally rare and I simply don't have the time to supervise you today. I'm sorry, perhaps another time."

Dawn held up her hand._ Wow._ Okay, first she was _too dumb _for his books and then she was_ too irresponsible_ to handle them when _Buffy_ was the one who cracked the spines? Ye gods and little fishes. Dawn didn't have the words. "Some free advice, Mr. Giles, if you're gonna brush someone off, don't drag it out with excuses about how they're too young and stupid. It smacks of gatekeeping and makes you sound really, really snobby." Turning and stalking back to the table where Buffy had ditched her for training, Dawn began to gather her books, all but throwing them into her backpack. It shouldn't hurt her feelings. It shouldn't.

Shouldn't, but did.

Reaching for her last book, Hans Christian Andersen's _Snedronningen,_ she was brought up short when Mr. Giles picked it up instead. Then he opened it and it was all she could do not to snatch it out of his hand. So, she couldn't read his books, but he could read hers?

"The Snow Queen?" He looked up, the beginnings of a frown pinching between his eyebrows.

"In the original Danish," Dawn shot back, unable to help herself.

To his credit, Mr. Giles had the grace to wince, his expression turning sheepish at the edges. "Yes." His voice grew wry, self-deprecating. "I... I rather think I deserve that. For what it's worth, I apologize. I'm simply not used to, ah—" He waved a hand, nose wrinkling, and Dawn was glad he stopped before he could trade insulting her on purpose for _accidentally_.

He handed her the book. "But, Dawn, this is remarkable. Did you teach yourself?"

Shrugging, Dawn slid it into her bag. "Um, yeah? I mean, mostly. Oz helped a little when I tackled the_ Divine Comedy._ All the double consonants and phonemes hurt my brain." Of course, she'd started it in a fit of rebellion, thinking _Inferno_ sounded Hellmouthy. By the time she figured out that Italian was _way_ harder than it looked, her pride wouldn't let her quit.

It helped that during her lowest, hair-tearing moment, Oz had strolled in, looking suitably impressed with her, thus fanning the flames of a terrible crush that would last for months.

Mr. Giles looked impressed now, too, if grudgingly. "You have an interest in languages?"

Dawn rolled a shoulder. "Sort of? I don't like reading translations. It's like drinking watered down kool-aid, you know?"

The pinched frown between his eyebrows returned. Oh, joy, British incomprehension.

"Watered down tea," she amended. "All the flavor's gone."

The frown eased. "Ah. I see."

Head tipped, Mr. Giles fixed her with a sharp, assessing look, staring at her like he'd never seen her before. By degrees, his flustered ire faded to wary interest and his shoulders tilted into a more companionable slant. When he spoke again, his voice was softer, lacking the befuddled hostility she was used to. "Why do you want to read those books, Dawn?"

She didn't pretend to misunderstand him. Leaning a hip against the table, Dawn crossed her arms. "Look, I know Buffy likes to pretend I'm still a little kid." Along with everyone else in the world, present company included. "But I'm in high school now, Mr. Giles, and I like stories. More than that, I like figuring out which stories are real. I mean, yeah, wishing is of the bad, got the memo in triplicate, but that's not _just_ because of Vengeance Demons."

_I wish the goblins _would_ come and take you away — right now._

There was something in the air as she spoke, a charge of excitement, and Dawn could feel it turning her words warm as she went on, her passion given shape. "Elf mounds, fairy circles, witch winds, enchanted fruit." She smiled, lips curled in amusement. "Goblins." The ring in her pocket turned warm, too. Her hand slipped in to touch it, fingers curling around it. "It's stories recast as history," Dawn said. It might as well have been a shout, the way the words hung between them, heavy and ringing. She felt dizzy, racing heart lodged in her throat. Her fingers clenched around the ring. "Why _wouldn't_ I wanna read them?"

The charge in the air thickened, expectation humming like an electrical current. Mr. Giles seemed dazed, caught by her words, caught by the zeal in them. Because he understood knowledge for knowledge's sake. He _respected_ scholarly pursuits, even if he didn't respect her. The ring was hot, Mr. Giles's eyes were unfocused and fever-bright, and Dawn _wanted_ those books.

'_Say your right words,' the goblins said. _

And just like that, Dawn knew exactly what she had to say. When all else failed, tell the truth.

"Buffy's gonna die one day, Mr. Giles." It was a blow to the temple, a stake to the heart, brutal and devastating and _honest_ in its cruel savagery. He flinched and she pushed on, "Not today, probably not tomorrow, but one day, my big sister's gonna die. Someone else will be faster or smarter. Or just..." She breathed in, then out. "—unfairly lucky. If I'm gonna be any help to her, I need to start somewhere. I'm _good_ at languages and mythology and even better at fairytales, which, hey, the Gentleman and Der Kindestod? Relevant."

Dawn lifted her chin. "I've been kidnapped, threatened, hurt..."

_Through dangers untold and hardships unnumbered, I have fought my way here..._

"And I hafta tell ya, I do better when I know _why_ something is dangerous. Keeping me ignorant isn't keeping me safe; it's just putting everyone else in danger. Buffy was fifteen when she became the Slayer, and I know more now than she did then. _Put me to work_."

The world stilled, the ring cooled, and Mr. Giles blinked, his gaze losing its unfocused, feverish shine. He sighed out a long breath and took off his glasses to rub his eyes. When he spoke, the words were slow with consideration. "I-I can see that you've put a lot of thought into this, and I agree to an extent. Much to my surprise." He shivered, shoulders bunching like a cat who'd been pet the wrong way. "Now, I can't promise you anything, Dawn, but..." His hand lowered to his side and he looked at her, really looked, and she knew he finally saw what he'd once seen in Willow and Xander: usefulness wrapped in untapped potential.

"We'll start slow," he decided, sliding his glasses back on. "What Buffy doesn't know won't hurt her, and I have, well... I have rather a lot of books that aren't related to immediate research. Demonologies and diaries and, uh..." Mr. Giles frowned slightly. "Stories."

He held up a hand, saying, "Wait here." Then he turned and strode away.

Watching him go, Dawn sank into her chair, elbows resting on the table. Distantly, she noted her that hands were trembling. She shook them out, only to pause when she saw a mark on the palm of her left hand: the imprint of the ring, red and tender. Eyes widening, she shot a panicked look to where Giles had taken the staircase to the Magic Box's restricted section.

"Aw, crap."

When he returned with _exactly_ the books she had wanted, Dawn knew that — somehow, some way — the King of the Goblins was laughing at her.

_What's said is said._

* * *

**Author's Note:**  
(1) _Ich spreche ein bisschen Deutsch_: I speak a little German.  
(2) Because a talent for linguistics isn't something that pops up out of absolutely nowhere.  
(3) Buffy and Giles weren't leading the Dawn fan club when she came onto the scene.


End file.
